Wednesday, October 19, 2011

Ever since I was pregnant with AJ, I've been horrified quite frequently as I perused the offerings in many children's clothing stores. Bibs that said "Brat," shirts that said "Diva," items that proclaimed loud and proud how the CHILD was the one in charge! This glorification of poor and disrespectful behavior in children is something that has long troubled (and at times sickened) me. For the past several years, I've been saying how someone needs to create a clothing line that glorifies GOOD behavior, RESPECTFUL behavior, APPROPRIATE behavior in children.

After no one took my idea and ran with it, I finally came up with some designs myself. Thanks to the internetz, creating, selling, and distributing custom clothing is easy! Because of all of that, MommyBee Designs is now open for business both at CafePress and at Zazzle. The shirt designs are the same in both places, but the colors, sizes, shirt types, and prices vary a little between the two.

Our "Learning to bee" line glorifies things like "Learning to bee obedient" or "Learning to bee respectful." Each shirt includes an applicable Bible verse.

In the "Other" category are designs like "Unexpected Blessing," and "My PARENTS are the BOSS of me!" (Also with applicable Scriptures included.)

I'd love it if you'd share this, buy a few, post about this someplace, buy a few, tell a few friends about it, and perhaps buy a few.

If you're someone big in the blogging world and would like to offer a giveaway of some sort, I'm VERY happy to oblige!

In reading through the comments though, it amused me the assumptions people made about me (to some extent...on the very rare occasion, people were just mean). I didn't feel the need to respond to each comment, but if anyone cares enough to have come over here to check out who this "Melissa" person is, I wanted to clear a few things up.

First off, my children are definitely _not_ "bubble" children. We try (as the budget allows) to eat organic, but mostly I try to just cook from scratch with whole ingredients. It didn't even occur to me when I posed the question that it would veer off (for some) into 'Melissa must be an all-organic, all fair-trade, all free-range, all hormone-free helicopter parent' kind of thing. Right now our priorities are whole grains (except even I can't stomach whole-grain pasta most of the time), and minimization of food dyes, artificial sweeteners, MSG, and less so things like nitrites (nitrates?) and other preservatives. After that comes a preference for organic. Only after that would come fair trade/free range (sadly...I understand the issues there to a limited extent, we're just not quite there in our baby steps to becoming better stewards, etc.). That's just where we are in our process. Someday I'd love to be all of those things (except a helicopter parent), but we're far from there.

Secondly, it really amused me the number of times it was mentioned that I have clearly never experienced poverty for myself if this is my question. That amuses me immensely because I _HAVE_ experienced poverty, not personally, but I've definitely seen it for myself, first-hand (and not even as a visitor - I lived there for over a year) - just not necessarily in America. The poverty (not starvation, mind you, just poverty) that I've seen has been in developing countries and war-ravaged countries. I think poverty looks VERY different here than it does in places like Iraq and Nigeria. And that was/is a large part of my dilemma.

In Iraq, I could absolutely have given a sack of rice with no worries to a poor person. They would have known exactly what to do with it and would have appreciated it immensely. In America, those in poverty don't necessarily _want_ plain rice (or any other random shelf-stable ingredient). They want Hamburger Helper and boxed rice with other stuff that can be microwaved easily. They want pop-top cans.

We send a 5-gallon bucket of pasta, rice, peanut butter, flour, and oil to Haiti and a family can eat for a month. I have those same ingredients in my pantry and my babysitters' mom worries that we can't afford groceries because my cupboards are "bare."

I absolutely don't understand poverty in America. I've never truly experienced it first-hand, and what I imagine I would want were my family in that situation are NOT the things that are listed as "needs" for the crisis food pantry at my church. Maybe because their emphasis is on homeless rather than just poor? I don't know.

If this question had easy answers, I would have figured it out for myself!

Monday, July 18, 2011

So I often have "mommy guilt" over the fact that it seems like all I ever do is correct my children. When I'm not correcting, I'm mostly moralizing (as in, someone (on TV, in a book, in real life, etc.) does something and so we discuss how that action was foolish or unkind or whatever...or the flip side - what they did was very kind, generous, wise, etc.). Sometimes it's little things ("AJ, get your finger out of your nose."). Sometimes it's not ("Joanna, stop eating Styrofoam/rocks/sticks/mulch/barrettes"). But it's a constant part of my day. I feel like the other moms aren't constantly correcting their kids and I worry that I'm too hard on mine.

Today, while Lucy was sleeping and the bigger two were playing in the pool, I was working on this plant that is infesting our yard. We have no idea what it is. It is growing _through_ one of our trees (as in parasitically pretending to be branches on this tree - growing up between bark and trunk or in between rings) in addition to popping up EVERYWHERE in our yard. It has a woody root and is VERY fast-growing, but the branches are more like a flower or tomato plant (non-woody and slightly furry). If you happen to know what it is, feel free to let me know, but I'll warn you in advance about doing a Google search for anything that includes the words "weed" and "growing."

Not that I've done that.

Ahem....so there are plenty of blogs out there that can and will take every experience and relate it to God somehow. It's amazing sometimes, mostly because I doubt that the folks who write those blogs would speak that way normally, and since my writing style is very much conversational, I feel rather fake following suit. That tends to lead me to assume that _they're_ being fake, but that's my own issue to deal with, not theirs.

Anyway.....so this story isn't like that. I'm not telling you that _your_ life is like my lawn. No. This story isn't about you, it's about me. And that's what makes it ok somehow for me to tell. You see, as I was digging these plants out, getting as much of the root as I could in each instance (working with a broken shovel, which adds a whole new level to this metaphor), I really felt like God was telling me that this was my work - to root out those character flaws that are inherent to my children and to teach them the right way to go (morally, socially, fiscally, etc.). It's a seemingly endless task of hard, hot, backbreaking work (especially given the broken tool that I have to work with (that would be myself in the metaphor)). Every time it seems like I've gotten an area clear, I look up and see dozens more sprouting up. Sometimes I almost miss one because it's hiding in the grass. Sometimes the lawn gets mowed and it looks like they're gone for a while. Sometimes the roots go straight down. Sometimes they fan out just a few inches below the surface. Sometimes the smallest plants come from the biggest roots and sometimes the biggest plants come from the smallest roots.

But just like I could never eradicate the weeds if I stopped weeding, I'll never "train up my children" without the correction. And if I were to stop, even just for a time, those weeds would make WAY more headway than if I just battle them constantly and consistently.

So I'm letting go of that bit of "mommy guilt" today. It may get tiring, but at least one of my jobs right now is to root out all those weeds just as soon as their ugly heads pop up in the little garden that we've been given.

Wednesday, July 13, 2011

So my mom was visiting the other day when the kids and I found this HUGE dead beetle in the driveway (insert inappropriate John Lennon joke here).

Annnnyway.....it only seemed natural to me to run over to my mom and ask what kind of beetle it was (not "do you know..." but simply "what kind..."). Her deadpan response was, "There are more species of beetle on the Earth than all other creatures combined. I don't know all of them."

So I guess you never really get over expecting your parents to know everything. REALLY scary that my kids will think the same of me!

Tuesday, July 12, 2011

So my last post was in November of 2010. It's now July of 2011. Been awhile. Might be awhile again before another post comes up. There's just too much of life to live.

But I did want to point out one thing. From the inception of this blog until now (really my most recent birthday which was three weeks ago, I just didn't get around to fixing things here until today because did I mention that I haven't posted since November?), I've gone by the name "Leia." This was for reasons of security due to my location at the beginning, then for privacy later on. But there's just something about a 35-yr-old woman, married, with three kids calling herself "Princess Leia" that's just odd.

And it's not that I mind being odd....but it's really just time. So I decided that I would "come out" on my birthday. If there's still anyone out there with me on a feed-reader (or who is still inexplicably manually checking for updates) who didn't already know it, my actual name is Melissa. VNB's actual name is Ryan (and he's still my "Very Nice Beloved"). AJ's actual name is AJ. Joanna's actual name is Joanna (see...I'm sneaky like that). Oh, and I had a baby in March. Her actual name is Lucy. We also have a cat whose actual name is Monkey. That's only been mildly confusing to the children, to my great surprise.

Does this mean I'm going to begin posting regularly again? Doubtful. Please don't lay guilt-trips on me to do so if we're related by blood or marriage (or even if we're not, I've just mostly gotten the pressure from relatives). That's seriously counter-productive with me. The more you pressure, the less I want to write. And no, it's not Facebook that's "killed" my blog. I don't post there much either. As I said earlier, there's just too much life to live to stop and write about it all.

Mostly I just wanted to make note of the change and explain why it's occurred. Back to living life!

Thursday, November 18, 2010

So it's National Collection Week for Operation Christmas Child. Our church's official "turn in your box" day was Sunday, so I gave it a few days to let the last of the stragglers come in, then I picked them up today (all 109 of them!) after our MOPS steering team meeting. I dropped Joanna off at home with the babysitter before taking AJ with me to the collection site. Prior to leaving the house, I pulled out one of the boxes that our family had packed and we prayed over it, just like last year. Except this year I knew better than to talk about the individual things that were in it and how much fun the boy or girl who got that box would have with them. And that was when the tears came. Again.

Since last year, I'd collected all sorts of little things - kids meal toys, small gifts given in multiples to my kids (we kept one), a few little things left over from some random stuff given to our MOPS group (stamps, magnets, etc.), the hard candy from the kids' Halloween bag, etc. And I'd bought a couple of things - dish sets from Ikea (plate, cup, bowl, and utensils in six colors, so there were six sets which made our goal this year to fill six boxes so that one set could go into each), and a few puzzles and the Target Dollar Spot. We had an overflowing reusable grocery bag full of stuff to put into boxes. And there had been JUST enough boxes left over when the church seemed to stop taking them for us to have our six (four of which I didn't even wrap - and considering that I wrapped 61 this year, that's saying something)!

On the day I set aside for us to fill our boxes, AJ did GREAT. He was the one who did most of the packing (with a _little_ direction from Mama, but really not a whole lot). Joanna we had to keep an eye on as emptying things is her current favorite activity, but even she didn't do too badly (it helped that they each got a Target Dollar Spot puzzle too - that I gave them as a distraction when we _started_ the packing instead of at the end like last year). While there were a few exclamations of "I have this toy" (typically the truth - we purged a LOT of duplicates from the toy bin), there was no question of where the things needed to go, just which box to put them in.

The problem came when we needed to bring the boxes out to the car. Because, even though he understood that the TOYS were for the children who didn't get Christmas presents, somehow AJ had determined that the BOXES needed to go under OUR Christmas tree. RIGHT NOW. Never mind that we don't have a tree yet. Never mind that we'd just spent an hour filling the boxes with stuff for other kids. No...shoe boxes went under Christmas trees. Specifically OURS.

Once the boxes were out of sight at church with all the rest, the discussion ended (yay for "out of sight, out of mind!"). Until we filled our car with the 109 boxes that our church and MOPS group had collected (including our six). Then AJ started talking again about how the boxes were going to go under our tree. When I corrected him, explaining that God had blessed us so that his daddy and grandparents and I could more than take care of him this Christmas/birthday but the boys and girls who didn't have enough maybe even for food would get these shoe boxes, well, that started the waterworks.

Le sigh....maybe at "almost 5" he'll be old enough to understand true, selfless generosity. At least this year it wasn't about the toys. And the way to make him happiest this Christmas will be to put whatever toys he's given into a shoe box-sized package (nice that he's still mostly easy-to-please - although we've DEFINITELY heard more "I wants" this year than ever before).

But I'm still proud of my little man. Giving away something that you want for yourself is never easy, especially when you really just don't understand why. But he was brave and did a great job helping to carry boxes into the collection site. And he got to go inside McDonalds with mama afterward to have lunch. So I think that all is right again in his world.

Tuesday, November 02, 2010

I also just had the best Greek salad I've ever had for lunch. It was a pre-packaged one I bought at the cafeteria. I've bought them before and have no idea what was so spectacular about this one, but it was G-O-O-D, GOOD!

Monday, November 01, 2010

That's right....it's my kids' grandparents' favorite time of year - National Blog Posting Month, where I'm supposed to post every day for a month.. I made it last year. I'm not feeling terribly inspired, but we'll give it a go again this year.

Friday, October 01, 2010

So I haven't posted much in a while. It wasn't intentional, life's just happened. A lot. And I haven't felt like talking about it necessarily. Nothing bad, just too busy to ponder deep ponderings or come up with witty things to say.

But something prompted me to look at my blog stats today, which made me notice that there are actually real people looking at my blog occasionally and not just the folks who click "next blog" on the top. Many of them are still searching for Unisom/B6 anti-morning sickness and finding me (which considering I wrote all of ONE post about that, still surprises me - ladies, go see your OB/midwife, because "Darn it, Jim, I'm a rocket scientist, not a doctor!"), but occasionally real people are clicking through from my comments on Stuff Christians Like or just stopping by on their own.

So I thought maybe I should post something. Especially considering that NaBloPoMo is coming up and I usually at least attempt to participate in that. So maybe I should gear up or something. Consider this some linguistic stretching.

Saturday, June 19, 2010

So VNB's been working long, crazy hours for what seems like forever. It doesn't help that in between weeks of long, crazy hours, he's had opportunities to go backpacking with friends, either leaving me and the kids at home, or leaving us back at the campground with other friends and kids. But his location changed computer systems a few weeks ago and he needed to prep for that, then deal with the aftermath. And about the time that was wrapping up, things started ramping up for their bi-annual inventory which is next weekend.

He's been great about being sure to be home if I needed to go someplace and has always made it home in time to say goodnight to the kids (even if sometimes that involved bringing a laptop home too) and I love and respect that he works so hard to support our family and wants to make sure that the job is done and done correctly...but it's been lonely around here sometimes.

So we did something a little unusual last night - we skipped out on small group (we usually host it!) and went to a friend's birthday dinner at a ritzy restaurant in Baltimore.

Now, I'm not a big clotheshorse and tend to the "practical" side when it comes to clothing purchases, so I pretty much have "home" clothes, "work" clothes, and "church" dresses. I've got a couple of dresses that (mostly due to two kids and their aftermath on my hips) are a _little_ too short for church now, but really nothing that screams "Friday night out at trendy restaurant in Baltimore." And I'd worn one of my two "not-quite-for-church" dresses on our last night out without the kids (with his aunt and uncle) a few months back, so I opted for just a work shirt, some jeans, fancy sandals (in my mind anyway), and makeup.

VNB was a little disappointed that I didn't wear a dress when I picked him up from work to go to the restaurant, but he still thought I looked nice. I was more concerned about being over-dressed than under-dressed, personally, so we went on to the restaurant. We were the first of our group to get there and it was clear that I would not have been over-dressed in one of my "not-quite-for-church" dresses.

I didn't really care one way or the other, but VNB was worried that I'd feel under-dressed and we had time, so he sent me shopping. The hostess knew of a place a couple of blocks away that sold clothes, so I started walking on my shopping adventure, passing another couple bound for the party on the way. The wife came shopping with me while the husband went on to the restaurant to keep VNB company.

I had a suspicion from a) the name of the store and b) the fact that it was right on the harbor in Baltimore that it would be pricier than my normal shopping venues, but it completely blew my mind when we went in and the cheapest thing we could find (on the CLEARANCE rack) was like $60. And U-G-L-Y! So my friend and I decided that I'd try on a few of the uber-expensive things, and text VNB a pic (and price tag!).

I was assured by everyone present that the $138 "dress" I tried on looked great on me (I was _NOT_ wearing the proper undergarments for that dress and after two babies...well....I need some support). But VNB said it was worth the price tag (!!!!!! this from the man who wants us to cut back on our fast food intake so that we can save every penny for a new house). The sales girl thought the store next door might have supportive undergarments, so we went there prior to purchasing anything.

I was thinking "Urban Outfitters" when she said "Urban Chic" is right next door. So I was pleasantly surprised when I found a dress in there that was shaped so that I didn't need to purchased new undergarments and in a color that I liked. Then I looked at the price tag.

$300!!!!!!

I'm not kidding.

So we looked at a couple of other dresses and shirts there. $250. $275. Occasionally we'd find something for _ONLY_ $220.

And it's not like these were woven with gold fibers or were jewel-encrusted or anything. They were just cotton fabric. And not even especially high-quality! And this is normal spending for some people! Crazy.

But then I saw what I thought was a shirt. It was "only" $70 (had to have been the cheapest non-accessory in the entire store - which had a baby line too, btw!), so I went to try it on. Turns out it was a slinky dress that allowed me to continue wearing my undergarments and fit me like a glove. So I bought it, without even taking it off. The cashier stuffed my clothes into the world's tiniest bag, and then we were off to CVS.

My initial plan was to spend a few minutes in their bathroom shaving (after purchasing the necessary items), but we gave up on that idea in favor of pantyhose (control top for the slinky dress!!), and then gave up on that idea in favor of fancy ($8) flip-flops.

We then made our way back to the restaurant (everyone was there by then) and were immediately escorted to our table (which was only just then available) and proceeded to have an awesome time with friends. And even got home in time to get the babysitter home before her driving curfew!

And it was great to get to spend time with my husband who wanted to spoil me a little. We both needed the break, and we needed the time together.

Friday, June 18, 2010

So really, this hasn't become an "all review all the time" kind of blog, I've just had a couple of reviews that were due at certain times (like this one) and haven't posted much in between. I'm getting back to where I think I'll start posting again soon, really.

But back to the book. This is this year's MOPS devotional book (which is included as part of the mentor mom membership!) - Out of the Spin Cycle: Devotions to Lighten Your Mother Load by Jen Hatmaker. It's a 175-pg devotional book (40 devotions total) that again was given to me (for free!) by Revell (the publisher) so that I'd review it here sometime this week. Its sticker price is $11.99, but Amazon has it for $8.63 (again, affiliate links).

This is not a "let me expound on this Scripture passage" type of devotional. It's a "let me tell you a funny/poignant story (usually about my kids) and relate it somehow to God/the Bible" kind of devotional. The stories, thankfully, are never trite although it touches on familiar themes like worry and not being/doing enough. It's written from the perspective of a married woman, so there are many "married" examples that may not be specifically applicable to single moms, but I think there are plenty of useful "generic mom" devotions for everyone.

At the end of each devotion there are a couple of questions relating to the text, followed by a task (or two) to help you "Step Out of the Spin Cycle." As moms, we wear many hats and are pulled in many, many directions. The spin cycle is a very apt analogy, both in terms of the "over and over and over again" of dishes and laundry and always-dirty kids, but also in terms of life seeming to be completely out of our control. I really like the practical (and usually quick) ideas for how to step away at least from that mentality, even if life stays busy.

Each devotional is just a few pages long, so I was usually able to read them in the few moments I had between waking up myself and letting the kids get up. Occasionally I was even able to concentrate on one or two when AJ was awake and snuggling in bed with me. They're not too long that they take lots of time that you already don't have, but they're long enough that the actually _say_ something every single time. There was not a single devotional that I walked away from without having something to think about. They're also short enough that they could be used at a MOPS or MOPS steering team meeting. And since they're each stand-alone devotionals (instead of building off of each other), you could find one that applies to the topic at hand and just read that one.

Were there any devotionals that blew my mind and changed my life? Eh...not really. But they were all good, practical, and timely. Definitely a book I'd recommend!

Monday, June 14, 2010

So, a crazy thing has been happening lately. People have been reading my blog. I don't get it. I've hardly posted in like two months and yet random people that I don't know keep following my blog. It's not even halfway through the year and I've already surpassed my page-load stats from last year. Granted, I think I forgot to add in the counter code back in for a little while last year after Blogger changed some things up, but still. I'm not really sure why you're here, but you're welcome to stay! Maybe one of these days I'll get on the ball and actually post regularly!

In the mean time, here's a little tidbit I've been thinking a lot about lately - the church's definition of "success." Churches have limited resources, so they have to use some metric to determine which ministries get money and how much. Frequently that metric is "we've always done it, so we have to keep doing it." While that's not necessarily the best of metrics, it's also far from the worst. I'm not talking about that one right now. Next to that one though, the metric tends to be "results." But how does a church gauge results? Well, we're told not to judge, so it's not like we can look at the people involved in the ministry and decide whether or not spiritual growth has occurred. So what do we do instead? Well, we look at the numbers. How many people are coming? How many people have had a need met by the ministry?

And we want to see results right away. Because it's God's money and we don't want to waste it.

So what would you call someone who plugged away at their ministry for three years. Heart and soul poured into it. Every moment of every day he was either meeting needs, teaching, or preparing to do one or the other. And at the end of those three years, even with miraculous things happening, there were only 120 people who were "regular attenders." Oh, there were other hangers-on, but really only 120 were into it. The modern church, I think, would call that man a failure.

Friday, June 11, 2010

So this year MOPS sent me their "theme" book again to review (for free!! LOVE IT!). And like last year, it was well worth the read. This year's theme is "Momology: The Art and Science of Mothering," so it makes very good sense for the theme book to be called "Momology: A Mom's Guide to Shaping Great Kids." It was written by Shelly Radic, the Chief of Staff for MOPS, International with a foreword by Naomi Cramer Overton, the president of MOPS. It's published by Revell (the actual ones responsible for sending me my free copy), is just over 200 pgs long, and normally retails for $13.99 (Amazon has it for $10.07). It is available here. (This is an affiliate link, so I get like $0.02 if you buy the book through that link.)

So now for the review. I'll start with what I didn't like about it (not a whole lot and mostly picky, stupid things), then move on to what I _did_ like.

Didn't like:
- In an effort to make it look like the insets were actually sticky notes, the book is printed with two colors - black and sticky-note yellow. It's not a big deal for the notes themselves, but for some (stupid) reason, it bothers me in the header. Like I said, stupid.
- There are statistics quoted in various insets that I frankly just don't believe. Now, I'm pretty sure these were unscientific polls taken from a subset of the population (probably mostly made up of MOPS moms who are proactive enough to fill out a survey), but to say that 71.4% of people "know the God-given purpose for their life?" (That's on pg 196.) Isn't that supposed to be the biggest problem that most people have? In the introduction it says that the stats were from surveys taken of 1800 moms, but I just don't believe that one in particular. Maybe that's just me though!
- Last year, MOPS, International was rolling out a new steering team position - Service/Outreach. That was right up my alley, so not only did I take on that role, but I also REALLY appreciated that one of the main aspects of the theme last year centered on serving others. This year, serving others accounts for like half a paragraph, buried in the middle of a chapter/section on something else. It seems to me like serving others should be a large part of the "recipe" that makes up being a mom, but I recognize that not everyone is the same in that regard.

Liked:
- This too, is relatively stupid, but I LOVE well-edited books. There's nothing more annoying to me than an inset placed such that there's no natural pause in the text for the reader to read the inset. There are a _LOT_ of insets in this book (just flipping through, it's probably something close to 50% of the pages). I think I remember ONE time that I had to flip back to read the inset. That's some DARN good editing/formatting.
- I also appreciated the "scientific" chapter/section notation (i.e., 3.2.1 Neighbors, etc.).
- I like that they're trying very hard to make this an interactive experience, opening up moms to more opportunities for community. Often throughout the text or in a "Practicum," examples will be given for some strategies to use in a given situation and the reader is encouraged to go to mom-ology.org to add their own strategies or discuss dilemmas they are having.
- While I wasn't quoted this year, I enjoy the "Voices" sections where they quote actual moms as they discuss the topic at hand.
- I also enjoyed the "Field Study" and "Practicum" sections of the text. The Field Studies are insets where one mom tells her story (that relates to the subject at hand) and the Practicums are either specific tasks the reader can do to put that subject matter into practice or they are questions for discussion/thought.
- One other structural aspect of the book was how short each section was. It was handy for frequent interruptions. The sections flowed well enough into each other that it was never a problem to continue on to the next section if I was able, but it was also always very easy to quickly finish the section I was on and put the book down to tend to whatever emergency was at hand!
- Now, as for the subject matter, while it seemed at times to stay on the surface of some of the topics, I think it went through a good range of topics that are issues with almost all moms. Occasionally there was something that would be unique to a married mom, but I think that's to be expected. Topics range from body issues to discipline to dealing with family to figuring out your purpose in life, and are centered around four ideas:

"Knowing who we are: building a healthy, resilient mom CORE

Knowing what we're capable of: developing FINESSE in the ways we daily interact with our kids

Knowing who we can count on: interacting within a CIRCLE of relationships that support us and our kids

Knowing who God is: engaging with him in his GRANDSCAPE"

(quoted from the Introduction on pg 12)

All in all I enjoyed this book and definitely look forward to another great year in MOPS!

Monday, April 26, 2010

So there for a while, I was posting almost _regularly_! Bet you though I was gonna keep it up, didn't you?

Fooled you!

Just kidding....it's been super busy these past few weeks. Really, I'll get back to posting here shortly. I've got at least one book review that's overdue, another one due soon, one more "deep pondering" that's been percolating for a while (having to do, ironically, with book reviewing), and some fun stuff from the kids.

On a funny note, I had that "Fooled You!" quote in my head. I knew it was a quote from a favorite movie, and I could picture the actor's lips (and hear his voice) as he was saying it....but it's taken me like half an hour to remember which movie it was from (Dark Helmet says it in Spaceballs). Now I have visions of Rick
Moranis' lips stuck in my head. Nice.

Tuesday, April 06, 2010

Today we're part of something big here at "Common Sense." Jon Acuff of StuffChristiansLike.net is doing one of his (in)famous "scorecard" posts, but is letting lots of us, his readers, participate by posting individual scorecard items on our sites. Click through to SCL to see the whole scorecard. The key will be posted tomorrow on his site.

So, without further ado...

The “Is that contestant on American Idol a Christian? Scorecard”

33. The first time they see the huge crowds that they perform in front of they mention, “Imagine if we did a love offering in here?” = + 3 points

Wednesday, March 31, 2010

On Saturday, April 24th, I'll be getting up earlier than normal. Leaving the kids and their daddy in their beds, putting on some running shoes, and making a valiant attempt at running an entire 5k. Theoretically, I'll be training for it too, but if it goes anything like last year, that won't actually happen. But it's only 5k. I can "run" most of that. And walk the rest.

But it's all for a good cause. This is one of the fundraisers for the Laurel Pregnancy Center, a crisis pregnancy center in my home town. They offer lots of services, including pregnancy tests, ultrasounds, parenting classes, post-abortion counseling, and pregnancy options counseling. And it's all for free! To anyone!

To help them out, you can sponsor me on my "run" by clicking here, then clicking on the "sponsor me" button on the right-hand side. They can send you an invoice if you don't want to put your credit card info online.

I love the work that the LPC does - giving people choices, explaining what those choices actually mean to all parties involved, and loving them through whatever choice they make. And while I've got 100 excuses as to why I can't actively participate right now in the actual work that they do, I can help them raise money to keep doing it. So help a girl out! Sponsor me!

Friday, March 26, 2010

Because of may factors all coming together recently, I've come to a realization: most "church friends" are really a lot more like co-workers than they actually are friends.

Now, before I get to far into this, I want whatever non-church-going friends I have (that actually read this) to understand that I'm not so much downing the church as I am just pointing out the nature of the beast (if you will). So don't add this as another "black mark" against the church, please! :) Instead see this as an introspective on how I, personally, need to be better. Yes, it applies to much of the universal church too, but mostly it applies to me.

But back to my point. See, you have no (or little) choice about who your co-workers are going to be. But whether or not you would have been BFFs in high school, you're still expected to act "professionally" around and to them. Yes, your co-workers can be a decision point for whether or not you'll take or stay in a certain job, but unless you're the one doing the hiring, you have little say in who else works there.

Similarly, you can pick a church with people in it that you get along with and enjoy (maybe they're all in a similar life stage as you), and you can choose to leave a church if you don't get along with the people there...but really, you have no say over who is admitted into the community of people who meet in your particular church building. It's not like it's acceptable for you to stand at the door of your Sunday School class and ask for the secret handshake, kicking out anyone who doesn't know it. In fact, not only do you not have any control over who comes, but you're also expected to "love" everyone who shows up.

So how does this work itself out in the day-to-day operations of a group of people attending the same church? Well, a group is thrown together for some purpose (let's call it a committee that is supposed to administer a certain ministry or activity within the church). Now, this group will have _something_ in common (other than just attending the same church), namely they all (theoretically) have some desire to see the ministry/activity succeed. Beyond that, however, they may have nothing at all in common, especially when talking about personalities. (Thinking back to the co-workers analogy, your project team all works at the same company on the same team, but that doesn't mean that your personalities are well suited for actual friendship.)

So even though your personalities may not go well together (or may even conflict greatly), you're expected to work together towards this purpose. So just like in your office you might put on a mask of "professionalism" prior to working with these other people, in church, you'd put on the mask of "love" for everyone. You put up with them at the meeting and say hello to them if they see you at the grocery store, and when you talk to them it's only about the "work" that you do together (relating to whatever ministries you're both a part of), but you don't know (or maybe even really care) what's going on with them beyond how they get their job done as it relates to you. Maybe you know the latest news in their life through Facebook or the grapevine, but you don't really know _them_.

Do we do this on purpose? I don't think we do. I think we're just too busy to take the time to get to know people in general, and have gotten into bad habits of assuming friendship where there really isn't any.

Maybe a more apt analogy is that a church is like a family (go figure). You have no choice over who comes into it, no ability to kick people out of it, and are expected to maintain a certain level of decorum around those with whom you interact. Some families are more "functional" than others.

So how do we (I) change this? I think it has a lot to do with the follow-up. In pretty much any ministry in a church, we take the time to share "prayer requests." One of the sweetest things anyone ever did for me was call me up after a doctor's appointment they knew I'd been worried about to see how things went and if there was any way they could help. That particular person, even though she had no ministerial reason to follow up with me on that thing is someone that I know actually cares about _me_ and isn't just putting up with me.

It think it also has to do with learning to be a better conversationalist. Instead of always resorting to the easy prey of common job functions, we (I) should have in our proverbial back pockets questions about something they mentioned the last time you saw them (maybe one of those prayer requests). I know that I, for one, am TERRIBLE with small talk. It terrifies me to the point that I'll just sit there and say nothing rather than try to think up something to say to someone. Apparently that's intimidating. But if someone can get me talking, it's hard to shut me up. Occasionally I might even be funny or insightful. I wonder if, in this age of Facebook, Twitter, and texting, we have lost the ability to have normal conversations? Or maybe it's just me sucking at it and assuming that everyone else does too. I don't know. Like I said, this is introspective.

I also think that we need to stop pretending like everyone is actually friends with everyone else. Co-workers with the same goal? Sure. Friends? No. We can be on the same committee and not go to each others' birthday parties without it being a big "thing." It's ok for people to have circles of friends that do not include me (or you). And I'm not forming a clique if I want to go camping with a group that's not all-inclusive of the whole church.

But having said that, it's also not ok to ONLY ever do stuff with that one group of people to the exclusion of all others. Sure, you might be closest with a small group of folks (that's natural), but you might be missing out on a lot of wisdom and fun by not ever talking to anyone else.

I think this works both ways though. There's a great movement within the church for "authenticity." Usually this involves admitting that you curse or drink or something. I think what this should really mean is that when someone asks you in the hallway how you are, you actually stop and give them an honest answer. I'll bet you money that the next time you ask that same person how they are, they'll be honest with you as well. I'm not talking about over-sharing ("well, little Timmy's got this boil on his hiney that we can't seem to get to go away..."), I'm talking about giving something more than just "fine how are you?" as you race past each other.

I'm also talking about actually paying attention when someone is speaking to you. I know I find my eyes wandering when speaking to folks. And usually when my eyes wander, my brain isn't too far behind. And if my mind's wandering when I'm talking to someone, then I have no idea what they're saying and have been far more rude than if I'd just walked on by without saying anything at all.

Anyway....this is long and rambly. Think about the people with whom you interact (especially in a "church" setting). Think about how you actually treat them. Then try to change so that you're actually friends instead of just co-workers. Or find something you can learn from them rather than just putting up with them like you do "crazy uncle Bob." If you feel so led, share about an experience (for good or bad) in the comments.

Friday, March 19, 2010

So recently I signed up with "BookSneeze" which is Thomas Nelson Publishers' way of using social media to get the word out about their new books. You get to pick a book, they send it to you (for free!), you read it, then you review it on your blog and on a consumer blog (like Amazon).

This is your basic biography of Winston Churchill. It covers his entire life, giving roughly equal treatment to every time period. The author tells about all of his various adventures, both good and bad, and throughout maintains a theme of Churchill's spirituality.

One reason that I selected this book was because the subject surprised me. With a series title like "Christian Encounters," one assumes that the subject in question is, in fact, a Christian. Since I'd not heard before that Churchill was a believer, this intrigued me. It was frustrating then to find that not only was Churchill not necessarily a Christian, but his beliefs basically didn't change throughout his life. He apparently saw religion only as a useful tool in giving people hope (i.e., "the opiate of the masses"). While he saw himself as being protected throughout his life by some force, he gave as much credit to destiny as he did God. If there had been some development in his spiritual beliefs (even if they never came to match my own), it would have at least been interesting, but there was no development. As biographies go, I suppose it was a fair one. It seemed odd to me that there was no more time given to WWII than there was his childhood, but otherwise it was informative. I think my biggest problem with it is including Sir Winston in a series entitled "Christian Encounters."

Thursday, March 11, 2010

So today, our MOPS group packed our buckets. Each discussion group filled their own as I read aloud a prayer I'd written, calling out each food item as it was to be packed. In one of the sections of the prayer, I asked that the food in the buckets would be multiplied (thinking that, like the widow, it would last the Haitian family until they could provide for themselves).

I'd brought a fifth bucket with me. One that was only about half-filled that VNB's office had put together (they had completed one bucket, but hadn't quite made it with the second). I brought it (and the other "extra" stuff that we had) in order to fill in gaps where we could (worked well because one mom brought ziti instead of spaghetti) and just in case someone brought more than was needed for their bucket.

In a couple of cases, someone mentioned that they had brought something, so I directed them toward the table with extra stuff....but for the most part, every time I glanced over at the table, there was another of something. Usually it was the sugar. I'd lost track of one canister amidst our various buckets (family, small group, Sunday School class, MOPS, Ferguson, etc.) which magically re-appeared today. But as the morning progressed, there was another canister of sugar. I knew it wasn't one of mine because it was a different brand. Then, when time came to pack up, there wasn't just one of that brand, there were two!

And then when I'd collected everything and brought it out to the car, someone found more rice.

Tuesday, March 09, 2010

A few days ago, I mentioned that I'd been busy with something called "Buckets of Hope," but I've failed to mention what it is exactly and since time is quickly running out, I wanted to give you the scoop.

What you do is you buy a white, 5-gal bucket with minimal branding on the outside. Then you buy:

Two 5-lb bags of long grain enriched rice

Two 2-lb bags of black (or red) beans (if you can't find 2-lb bags, you can get four 1-lb bags)

Two 1-lb boxes of spaghetti

One 5-lb sack of all-purpose (not self-rising) flour

One 48-oz plastic bottle of cooking oil (wrapped in a 2-gal ziplock bag)

One 40-oz plastic container of peanut butter

One 20-oz cylinder of sugar (like you'd use for coffee service at work)

$10 cash to help defray shipping costs

Once you've packed your bucket according to the directions found here, you bring it to your local participating Southern Baptist church (like mine) or your local Southern Baptist State Convention (like the BCM/D). The state convention will then ship the buckets they've collected to a warehouse in Florida, and from there, they'll all be shipped to Haiti for distribution there.

Local churches may have their own due dates for buckets, but they definitely _have_ to be at the state conventions by Monday, March 15th - that's THIS coming Monday. Sorry for the short notice.

The SBC did something similar with boxes of food that were sent to Iraq when I was there. Many thousands of Iraqis were helped by those boxes, and there were countless opportunities to share why we were feeding those in need. I don't think I can express how amazing an opportunity this is.

Could your $30 buy more food if it were sent to Haiti? Well, maybe, depending on scarcity. Would it be a LOT less work for you to just donate $30 to Compassion or World Vision or Samaritan's Purse or the Red Cross? Yes. But taking the time to fill a bucket with food that will be sent to a specific family that is in dire straits? It makes it personal and tangible for you.

Some people say that donation drives like this aren't as "effective" as monetary donations. And if you're merely looking at the stuff that can be purchased with the same amount of money locally (where the shipping costs are minimal and you're more likely to get something that the locals actually use), then they're right.

By giving each of us a tangible way to help, it brings the tragedy closer to us. It's almost too easy to give money. It goes right from the bank to the organization or from the credit card to the organization. Sometimes you have to fiddle a little with your budget to make things work, but for the most part, you never even miss the money.

But _stuff_...._stuff_ is real. Stuff is tangible. Stuff awakens the imagination.

I pray that you will be released from a little of your wealth by filling at least one "Bucket of Hope" today!

Friday, March 05, 2010

(Hey Company Girls! Our virtual coffee time these last few weeks has been taken over by info about the Help Haiti Live concert. I hope that didn't offend you, but I couldn't think of a better way to get the info out to a lot of people than to bring you, my Company Girls along! Now that the concert's over, I'll remind you of the auctions that are still on-going here and mention the group of bloggers that are in Kenya with Compassion right now, but for the most part, we'll be getting back to our "regularly-scheduled programming" now.)

So, I wouldn't say necessarily that I've had a "homemaking epiphany" lately, because it's something I've heard from lots of sources for a long time now, but I guess I recently just started actually implementing it in my life. That non-epiphany is that I don't have to do everything absolutely to completion, nor do I have to do it perfectly. And it's been amazing how freeing that's been for me.

To implement this non-epiphany, each day, I make a list of things that need to be done. Some of them have to be done today (meals, any planned outings for the day, any errands that need to be run, daily cleaning regimens, etc.), some of them need to be done soon (laundry, tasks that have upcoming due dates, etc.), and some of them just need to be done sometime (deep cleaning something, getting something ready to be put away for a long time, etc.). By spelling out the necessaries like breakfast, lunch, and dinner, I get lots of things to cross off my list (and I also have a better understanding myself of what I actually do all day)! And by simply rejoicing that I got _some_ stuff crossed off the list each day (and not beating myself up because I didn't get _EVERYTHING_ crossed off), it ends up being simply a reminder of my successes rather than an onerous list of onerous tasks that have to get done.

Sometimes things get copied from yesterday's list to today's list for weeks. And that's ok. Eventually I get tired of rewriting them and actually _do_ them. Sometimes I break up a task into sub-tasks just so that I can cross more stuff off the list! (Sometimes I do it because _part_ of the job got done, but not ALL of it and I want to celebrate that too!) Frequently I add things to the list after-the-fact, just so I can cross them off (and celebrate at the end of the day how much I actually did)!

The most amazing thing I've seen happen through it is that the cleaning load has started to get easier each day. Since I write down each room in my (small) house each day and mostly manage to spend a few minutes in each (some would call this "minimum maintenance," but by writing down each room individually rather than grouping it all together, I can cross stuff off the list without feeling guilty that I didn't get to them all), it takes less and less each day to _keep_ them clean.

Now, I'm definitely _NOT_ a "schedule" person (i.e., laundry on Monday, scrub floors on Tuesday, etc.), and I definitely _AM_ someone who gets a great deal of joy from recognizing my accomplishments by marking them off a list, so this works great for me. Maybe you'll do better with something else. But this has worked so far for me in my current life stage. And it's been wildly freeing for me, not to mention good for our house. It's still not "magazine clean" or even "company clean" most of the time, but it's better (and certainly easier and quicker to get to "company clean"). And that makes me happy too.

Thursday, March 04, 2010

So Compassion, International has brought a group of bloggers over to Kenya for a few days to look into their work there. None of these are folks that I follow normally (except for Shaun Groves), but I am for the duration of the trip (as I have for past trips they've taken) because what they express is so raw and powerful. It keeps my attitude in check.

Anyway, they'll be over there until March 10th, and you can follow all of their blog posts here.

Monday, March 01, 2010

So really, this blog isn't going to stop talking about my kids and life...it's just been crazy these past few weeks given the Haiti earthquake with stuff going on. The kids are good. Joanna's got 12 teeth (all 8 in the front and the first molars, skipping the canines). AJ's attempting to forgo his naps (his mama will not be foiled, however - there _WILL_ be quiet time, whether he sleeps or not!). Work is good. Life is good.

So instead of talking about that stuff in detail, I'm gonna tell you about a cool new offering from Phil Vischer, co-creater of VeggieTales and creator of JellyTelly - two of my favorite Biblically-based children's programing. It's called "What's in the Bible?" and features the characters and some of the content from JellyTelly.

Back in the day, Southern Baptists had several different "teaching" times, each focused on different things. Sunday School was focused on teaching the stories and facts of the Bible. GAs/RAs/Mission Friends/Brotherhood/WMU were focused on missions and missionaries. And "School of Disciples" or "Discipleship Training" was focused on how all the stories of the Bible fit together and other things like church history. Discipleship training as a class went the way of the dodo (at least in my church) when I was in late elementary school, so nowadays we have LOTS of folks who know some Bible stories, but have no idea how they all fit together and intertwine.

Well, if VeggieTales is like Sunday School, What's in the Bible is like Discipleship Training. And if the content is anywhere near as good as what's on JellyTelly, it's gonna be great!

In any case, the first two DVDs came out in stores today, so if you're related to me and/or my kids and just happen to want to pick one up (for them or yourself), I'd be all for it! ;p Even if you're _not_ related to my kids, you're still welcome to pick then up for yourself and maybe your kids too! Don't worry, it's not gonna make you crazy like Elmo does me.

Thursday, February 25, 2010

So, I'm not saying that I haven't been distracted by other things (like this and this (more to come on this later) and a meeting and chatting with my office mate and others), but part of me is wildly proud that I've made progress at work today and part of me is devastated by how small the progress was.

I'm doing a project with some people that do things (that's about the extent of my knowledge of what they do...seriously...this isn't me keeping top secret stuff from you, this is me being oblivious). On orders from a co-worker, I built a model for them (this is what I do at work - build models that exist wholly within my computer, my head, and sometimes my white board or some scratch paper. Either that or analyze things. Yes, this _is_ rocket science). But in reading the papers about the system that I modeled, I came across this other way of modeling things that I had some (albeit limited) experience with a few years back. So I started delving into that way of modeling things so that I could better understand the papers about the system.

But while I understood the text of the papers about the other way of modeling things, they would occasionally throw in a section using set theory. Set theory, my friends, is definitely _NOT_ rocket science. And by that I mean that I know almost nothing about it. I know math. I know basic physics, dynamics, statics, orbital mechanics, etc. I don't know jack about set theory. So I've spent the last several days at work trying to work through what amounts to half a page in one chapter of a book about this other way of modeling things.

My progress today? Most of two paragraphs. Two short paragraphs. And that was with the help of my office mate and his mathematician friends.

But I understand it. For reals. I _grok_ what those things mean. Transitive closure? BAM - the way to make something that's NOT transitive into something that is! Silly little symbol that I can't find anywhere other than this book that "denotes the restriction of f to B?" BAM.....ok....I've got it, but I really don't feel like explaining it to y'all. So just trust me.

Only two paragraphs left in this little half-page ("Preliminaries") section. But they start talking about alphabets and "words over" an alphabet. So I think I'll go home for the night and come back to it tomorrow.

It's been a long time since I've had to really learn something absolutely new to me. I don't remember it hurting this much. I think that makes me old.

So this weekend is the Help Haiti Live concert! Due to circumstances beyond anyone's control, the LA show was canceled, but the Nashville show is on (and possibly sold out!) and you can still watch it live (for free!) at HelpHaitiLive.com on Saturday, February 27th at 7:30 PM (Central - that's 8:30 PM in MD). You can see the line-up here, or you can look at my last blog post about it here. Since that post though, there have been a few additions to the Nashville line-up - specifically NeedToBreathe will be there (since they won't be playing in LA) and so will Jon Foreman of Switchfoot!

They've also added a new "auctions" page to the website. Starting yesterday (Wednesday), they are auctioning off the following:

Thursday, February 18, 2010

So I'm beginning to think that our kids watch too much TV (and by "TV" I really mean mostly DVDs as we gave up on the ever-changing PBS line-up many moons ago). Do I think this because the first thing my son says when he gets out of bed in the morning and after his nap is "I wanna watch a moooooo-vie on the TV?" No...that's not it. Is it because the TV is pretty much on the entire time that someone (other than myself) is awake and at home? Nope. That's not it.

There are actually two reasons that I think our kids watch too much TV:

1) AJ, who has always laughed when he heard other people laughing (that's a good thing, right? "Rejoice with those who rejoice?"), joins in pretty much every time he hears a "bad guy" laugh at someone else's hardship/situation. And he's started using an "evil" laugh too. Larry the Cucumber falls down and the "mean" characters laugh at him? AJ "laughs" too. With an angry smirk on his face and some gravel to his voice. No amount of, "Buddy, it's not very kind to laugh when someone has fallen down" seems to make any difference. He still does it. I guess the saving grace is that he has yet to do it in real life. And it's not like we watch "bad" movies. We're talking VeggieTales here. That's like watching the Bible on TV.

2) Joanna is both scared witless and fascinated by tall, thin characters that lean towards the viewer. She screams like a banshee whenever a "scary" character comes on (not necessarily a "bad" guy, just scary to her), but no amount of reassurance or distraction will keep her eyes from being riveted to the screen. As she screams. Like a banshee. So Jafar when he becomes a genie in Aladin? Scream. Goliath the pickle from VeggieTales? Scream. (She doesn't even have to see the pickle itself...just hear the music leading up to his coming.) Mr. Nezzer's Grandma in the Easter Carol (NOT a "bad" character). Scream, climb up mama, not to get away, but to get turned around so she can see more and scream longer.

So we put up with the whining when I tell AJ to play instead of watching a movie. We try to limit him to a couple a day. We use the excuse "Daddy will be home soon" earlier and earlier each day. We let his over-reaction to a scratched DVD be an excuse to turn it off. We make sure he puts the one in the DVD player away first before he can get another one out (which sometimes takes all day if he's lost the box).

And yet we still end up watching TV too much. At least we mix it up with JellyTelly from time to time! Maybe AJ should give up DVDs for Lent.